directed by:
David M Parks, LeeAnne Bauer written by: David M Parks, LeeAnne Bauer genre: Action, Thriller |
Man, the opening of this film is built on a really well-thought-out premise that felt like watching a totally plausible future unfold. A terrifying one, mind you, but indeed a possibility. Essentially, a breakdown between the USA & China results from politics surrounding Taiwan, triggering a chain of events that sends everything from the global supply chain to relations with allies straight into chaos. A nuclear warning has now been issued, war is coming, and martial law is about to be invoked. Like it or not, we live on a planet where this scenario is all too real, whether we acknowledge it or not.
Cue the beefy muscles & guns! “Blackout” gives you plenty of both right around the corner as it begins to take shape. For instance, Knox gets stopped by a bunch of psycho-eyed street thugs who have now declared a patch of land on the street as their own official territory already. The downfall of society would be like that, though, don’t kid yourselves. The chaos would spread quicker than even the most ardent prepper could ever prepare for, and it’d be the law of the jungle on the city streets in less than a day’s time. That being said, these people gotta get indoors as quickly as they can in case there’s a full-on nuclear blast, just in case that might help. It’s hard to think of how cheaply & quickly they can build a house these days, and assume it could withstand a nuclear blast or keep out radiation, but hey, I’m willing to go with it. I’d still have to bet being indoors would be a better bet than outside. A heavily tattooed dude named Atticus Reed does his best to reassure his people that just because the government is saying there’s danger, it doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily true. I try not to judge and all, but there are like, so many face tattoos and serious work that’s been done in the ink department, that you get the sense these people are either workin’ with the end-level boss, or at least being sold to us as being up to no good. Meanwhile, Ella, Noah, Knox, and Cai are quickly getting their barricade on, preparing for the worst. As the “Blackout” ensues and the power goes out, you start to think about that stuff Atticus was talking about, and you have to wonder if he’s right. At the very least, it might be danger of another kind that you didn’t see coming…maybe it’s not as obvious as the nuclear threat is. As Reed and his crew start to skulk their way around a bunch of warehouses in the dark of night and some (crazy-eye guy I’m lookin’ at you) debate the merits of going on a full-on Purge-inspired rampage, you can feel the pressure, tension, and potential threats continuing to build with a highly-controlled intensity that fits this film like a hand in glove, “Blackout” looms large with danger fully set to detonate. Guns get drawn, knives get pulled, and soon enough, the four friends are definitely in some trouble. It seems as though they’re going to have to possibly share their space with Atticus and his lunatic posse, unless Knox can deliver a knockout punch in the clutch. Spoiler alert, he doesn’t - and then the whole world pretty much blows up. The warehouse becomes their refuge, and I’m just going to go ahead and say that it was built with premium materials that managed to keep most of this misfit crew safe enough, at least for now. I’ll say this - I liked how this came out, very much! Sure, it’s obviously special effects and whatnot, but the imagery is strong. When things can be done manually, like ye olde man-on-fire, Directors/Writers David M Parks & LeeAnne Bauer flip the script and go the analog route instead, which I dig. Stunts are cool, and what you’ll see within “Blackout” in that respect is always tightly coordinated. As far as the story goes, you’ll hit the halfway mark with ease. “Blackout” is entertaining and engaging, and it really felt like Parks & Bauer found the right pace, look, and space to present this all the right way. As I said, the look of the whole post-apocalyptic mess waiting just on the outside of that warehouse is stellar. Even the characters themselves, certainly Atticus included, also look perfect in their roles. As far as the acting is concerned, I’ll be real with ya - it was better than I was actually expecting. I don’t know what I was thinking I’d get in “Blackout” specifically, but my days of seeing off-brand action movies flood the shelves of my old video stores will haunt me forever. Anytime I see one without a massive movie star connected to it, I think of the endless amount of films that used to be cheap carbon copies of major productions, but that hasn’t been my experience in reviewing movies here at IndyRed, to be honest with ya. Hence, here I am again, kinda bewildered that “Blackout” is an action film that I’m actually enjoying. So now I’m kind of on the flipside of the coin, you know? I’m like, in that camp where I’m keeping an eye on the time & hoping that feeling good about “Blackout” isn’t too good to be true, and it finishes strong. As it creeps into its final thirty minutes, you can feel that familiar tension beginning to build again, and before you know it, you’re seeing guns come out again, along with a freakin’ sword this time too. Some more minor spoilers ahead, just sayin’. Anyhow, you get the sense that things are about to get bloody at any moment as Reed confronts the group of four. He’s an interesting bad guy and very well designed. He looks hard as nails, but there’s a unique sincerity to him that makes the things he says very believable - Mike Ferguson’s take on Atticus didn’t usually just steal every scene he was in, he claimed it with confidence and authority, owning his screen time. He’s got that whole gruff, J.K. Simmons type thing goin’ on…full of grizzled wisdom, and yet very hard to trust at the same time. The complexity of Reed’s character is brilliantly played out in front of us, and in his most major scene with Ella, he delivers a highlight performance that fuels this story forward.
Are the bad guys a little over the top? Sure. I’ll listen to ya if that’s how you end up feeling about good ol’ crazy-eye, forehead tattoo, and the rest of the crew lurking outside with their gasmasks in the fallout, but I felt like they were fun in a good way. Is it a little far-fetched to believe this one warehouse is the almighty fortress, able to withstand a nuclear blast? Sure! Even that didn’t feel like it really mattered to me…Maybe I felt like I went into watching “Blackout” with a low threshold for my suspension of disbelief and simply didn’t get rattled by how this plotline hinges a little on colouring outside the lines of reality in that particular way. Good entertainment is what it is, and when you’re enjoying what you watch, you’re more likely to allow for a bit of flexibility in the story, characters, acting, direction, or production quality. For the most part, it felt like “Blackout” remained focused on remaining a thriller and kept its energy up, and if that cost it a few points on the believability scale, then so be it. I wanted to know if Crazy-Eye would survive! I wanted to know who Atticus really was on the inside, and why he was there in the first place! I wanted to see if a sword could really take down a gun! There were lots of cool things added into the storyline of “Blackout,” even if it stretched a bit thin at times. Parks & Bauer pretty successfully navigated their way through this whole film & delivered something most folks would dig watching if they like the whole Action/Thriller thing. So yeah, that comes with a few points of the plotline you’ll just have to go with because you don’t really get to know the nitty and gritty of the details all the time, but that’s to be fairly expected in this kind of realm. As for the very end…I mean…I’m just going to lay this out there, so don’t read on if you don’t wanna know where it lands, but I felt like that last scene almost did “Blackout” a disservice. It’s just a radio with a voice, asking if there’s anybody else out there…it seems innocuous, but at the same time, we’re all like, YES OF COURSE THERE IS - if a bunch of people could survive in a normal-ass warehouse in a nuclear blast, YES THERE ARE OTHER SURVIVORS SOMEWHERE! All in all, it was fun…don’t get me wrong, I’m really not complaining. 3.5/5 stars from me. |
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